


Fire in the Blood [A Collection]

by Cherith



Series: Bring My Soul to Bare [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blackmail, F/F, F/M, Femslash, lurid romance novels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-10 07:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherith/pseuds/Cherith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seimaisin and I have agreed to a challenge for May, one in which the both of us will put up fic every other day throughout the month.  I’ve got the even days and she's got the odd ones and we’ll go back and forth until the end of the month.  I’m going to be working from the prompt generator for the most part, because I really need the inspiration of characters I might not work with often.  I'm posting each of my days here in one collection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Loving You From Afar (Marian/Fenris)

She’d moved on, like she had every reason to do. When someone leaves, when someone says that what you want and need from them is something they can’t give, moving on should be easy. If someone else comes along and stirs your heart and makes you feel something different, something powerful, and they feel the same for you there’s every reason in the world to find a way to make things work. 

At least that’s what Marian liked to tell herself, and the not-worth-the-copper-she-paid-for-it swill that Corff slung down the bar. The ale was a poor listener, but it didn’t talk back either. It didn’t tell her that she hadn’t any right to stare across the bar where Fenris had his hand wrapped around Aveline’s waist. Marian’s ale, at the very least, didn’t tell her how awful she was for watching either. No, that was her own no-good excuse for a subconscious reminding her that at the estate, Merrill would already be fast asleep in their bed. 

Merrill who with all her sweetness and softness and kindness, had swept up the pieces of Marian that remained after Fenris left. Merrill whose ears turned pink all the way to their tips when Marian ran her fingertips over her bare shoulders, who had spent long days weaving them both chains of daisies and called Marian her warrior princess. Merrill who for all her faults, never wanted to say an unkind word to anyone, even if they deserved it. 

Marian could even describe (if anyone were to ask) in great detail exactly what Merrill would look like sound asleep, and smile while she did so. And yet, ale in hand, she sat at the bar and watched as Aveline and Fenris lost round after round of Wicked Grace. Not that they even looked to be trying to win while so outmatched by Varric and Isabela.

If she closed her eyes, she could hear Fenris’ voice from across the room and the rough timbre of his chuckle as he flipped over another losing hand. Aveline’s laugh followed but was muffled quickly and Marian didn’t dare look, knowing already the way Fenris’ mouth and hers seemed the perfect complement to one another. Not that Marian could do anything but smile and waggle her fingers in a half-hearted wave if she opened her eyes and happened to catch one of them looking this way. Even the concern in Aveline’s face was too much to reflect on for long. The last thing she needed was for her friend to feel sorry for her. Not when she knew she had no right to want the way she did.

She tried to hold onto the way Merrill’s skin felt under her hands, until her fingertips tingled and she had to tighten her grip on her mug for fear of not being able to hold onto it at all. She told herself that a little regret reminded her how important her decisions were. It reminded her that what she had with Merrill meant more to her than a kiss more than three years gone. Something that was so easy to think, so easy to say to herself -- well, you’d think it that would make it easy to believe too.

But Marian knew she was wrong about that. Believing it should’ve been easy. Yet experience had worn scars into her thoughts with repetition, and she knew the difference between what she wanted to believe, and what was true. Too many of her nights were spent staring into one mug of ale or another wondering how it could be so easy to love one person, and hurt so much to love another.


	2. Shelter From the Storm (Morrigan/Leliana)

“Look at them, like lovebirds they are!” 

Morrigan rolled her eyes at the bard. “Yes,” she grumbled. “Perhaps I should turn the golem loose over there, in that case.”

“Don’t you dare,” Leliana did not raise her hand to strike her, but the pout she wore was weapon enough when wielded properly. “They need the rest… and your bed is the softest.”

“Yes, those are my furs, ‘tis my roof they are sleeping under, and my fire that warms them.” She folded her arms and leveled her gaze at the intruders. 

It was no secret that the Warden had disillusioned herself with the notion of distance as part of her leadership and her fellow Grey Warden. The two of them had stopped using separate tents just outside of Redcliffe and there were not so many of them to pretend they knew nothing. 

Mother had known it would come to this, curse her, and had forced them upon Morrigan anyway.

Morrigan shifted her weight and leaned her head to the side, glancing at the bard beside her. Finding those insufferable blue eyes still pleading with her to let the Wardens sleep, she rolled her eyes again.

She let out a heavy sigh. “Fine. They may stay. For now.” Without glancing back she walked towards the main campfire, the one she did her best to avoid, and sat down. The camp was empty enough, she would not have to endure anyone but the bard, for which she was grateful. The red-headed woman was a nuisance, but one she could abide for a short time, given the alternatives. 

Leliana followed, picking the space just next to her to sit. “See, you’re sweet when you want to be.”

“”Tis only practicality,” she huffed. “I let them sleep now—” she pointed towards the darkening sky— “and when that storm arrives, it’ll be their turn to stand watch while I sleep soundly under my own roof.”

“Well, it’s nice.” The bard bit the words at her, but when Morrigan did not turn or glance in her direction, she did not press forward. A moment later, Leliana was humming quietly at her side. It was no song she recognized, but that said very little about the bard’s range, and far more about how few songs Morrigan knew. In fact, if they stories or the songs did not feature her mother, she did not know them at all until Leliana recited them. 

Not that she listened.

Morrigan sat in silent stillness, watching the sky overhead as the birds quieted and flew for shelter in the trees. The Qunari creature came down the path to their camp, took one look at her and Leliana and ventured off to the farthest side of the clearing from any of them. She didn’t blame him for wanting his space. She felt motion beside her as the bard waved at him and Morrigan shook her head. 

“Let him be.” 

“I just thought—”

“Have you not listened to anything I’ve said about the Qunari?”

“I have,” Leliana said and the corners of her lips turned down making Morrigan grit her teeth determinedly. If she was swayed each time the woman frowned, she might as well let the darkspawn kill them all the next time they went into battle. She would accomplish nothing. Her mother’s laughter echoed in her head, knowing and spiteful.

“I just didn’t want him to be alone.”

Morrigan let out a sharp laugh. “”Tis preferable, I imagine, to stand on his own. That he stays at all is commendable.” She understood the feeling all too well. 

With a huff, Leliana stood. Morrigan was not in the least tempted to apologize, but she had to fight not to look at the other woman. She heard the bard gasp as she stood, but kept her gaze fixed skyward, feeling the first drop of rain on her bare shoulders. 

“The rain,” Leliana whispered. 

“…is upon us. Yes.”

“Are you going to wake them?” Leliana’s robes rustled softly as she lifted her arm and gestured at Morrigan’s small camp against the camp.

“‘Tis my camp…” Morrigan began, turning towards her. “Should I not be sheltered by it?”

Her question was met by the wide eyes of the woman at her side, eyes as blue as the lightening that split the sky in the distance beyond. Leliana’s lips parted as though to respond and Morrigan could do naught but think of another reason to curse her own mother. Flemeth had taught her many things, chief among them: how to seduce a man and when to give in to his attempts at the same. But she had never prepared her for the pouting lips of a red-headed bard and whether or not she should flee from them, or submit to the longing for them.

Leave it to Flemeth to forget a thing like women.

“Who is the witch here?” she muttered. 

Leliana’s grin grew quickly, blooming from lips to eyes in a single moment. And then she chuckled and stepped away from the fire, turning her back to Morrigan who watched as she approached her tent. 

“I always have enough room, Morrigan,” Leliana called out over her shoulder. “If it’s shelter you’re looking for.”


	3. Time Marches On (Varric/Marian)

When Hawke slept, it was as though the whole world stopped.  There was no light from the windows, no flickering shadows where the lanterns were starting burn low, and the normal settling sounds of the estate went silent.  There was only the gentle rise and fall of her breasts, and the briefest flutter of her eyelashes.  

In his mind, Varric kept his years with Hawke as a clever catalogue of phrases and people, and stories.  But her sleep and her dreams were hers alone and he longed to know them so much that it crawled along his skin like an itch he couldn’t reach.  Once, he’d looked down at her still groggy with sleep and her arm tossed dramatically over her face to block out the sunlight, and asked what she dreamed about.

She’d said, “Nothing, Varric.  Go back to sleep,” as if such a thing were so easily done.

Which was how it became that almost nightly, he found himself awake in the earliest dark hours of morning and watched her sleep.  If it felt like some invasion on her privacy, he would not admit to it.  It bothered him, her stillness, her quiet.  If not knowing was an itch he couldn’t reach, wondering if nothing meant _something_ , or nothing at all was heat in his chest choking out his breath.

His catalogue of the things that made her up: a missing father, a family on the run, a templar, a soldier, a pirate, a slave, an elf, an apostate, a prince, and a dashingly handsome dwarf, was complex and varied.  Too many of her stories were death and pain and sadness, and much at her own hands.  It was no wonder that she might wish for rest that remembered none of them at all, rather than dreams that reminded her of the bad in equal or greater measure than the good.

But _nothing_ \-- he feared that.  From the way the forest in her eyes turned to shadows when he asked about them, maybe it was right to fear what lay beyond.  

Or maybe, nothing was _something_.   

If nothing meant a night of hopes and pleasant memories, he wouldn’t wish to take it from her.  If the good could outweigh the bad even in her deepest slumber, when the days held little good at all, she should cling to it tighter than the gold he kept in the trunk at the end of the bed.  The notion did not content his thirst for her knowledge.  But at least when the sunlight found the will to slide across the bedroom floor and she rolled over with a deep breath, he took it as mourning for a pleasant dream gone and not relief.

“Mornin’,” she’d mumble and the birds in the nest on the awning over the windows would chirp a welcome of their own.  She made it seem as though the day took its cue from her: the dawn was awake with her, and not the other way around.

He liked that just fine.


	4. Running Out of Time (Amell/Isabela)

It was not the time to go looking for beautiful pirate women, but Solona couldn’t help herself. She wanted to be as far away from the the palace as possible, as far from Alistair and Morrigan and everyone as she could possibly get and still be inside Denerim’s walls. She might’ve had to attend the Landsmeet, but that didn’t really mean she wanted any part of it. 

The part a lowly circle mage had to play in a thing like the Landsmeet was so far from significant. That anyone wanted or cared for her opinion was unbelievable, even in a time of dark and terrible and unbelieveable things. Someone like Isabela: a pirate who only wanted Solona for something she was willing to give, and provided a distraction in exchange, was just what she needed. 

The Pearl was less busy than the last time she’d been in, or maybe it seemed that way because there wasn’t a common room full of thugs and mercenaries looking to stir up trouble. It was good it was quiet. Solona’s hands shook as she craned her head around the corner to see if Isabela was there. Without Zevran at her side, she felt woozy even considering approaching the woman again. 

She might miss him terribly, but if she never saw him again, she’d live.

They’d both made their choices.

Around the corner, Isabela sat at a game of Wicked Grace as though it’d been only hours since their last encounter and not the weeks Solona knew had passed. Shy as always, as though there had never been any Wardens or Zevran, like this was her first day fresh from the circle, Solona approached the table. She kept her head bent down, curls trailing over her shoulders and catching in the trim of the new tunic she’d bought just for such an occasion. 

Not sure how to interrupt, or even if she should, Solona hovered near the table, as Isabela severely trounced the man across the table from her. She remembered that feeling: card after card appearing on the table as though from thin air and each of them better than the last; none of the good cards had ever been hers. A release of the nervous energy she felt, she clapped her hands as Isabela collected her gold. 

“Oh,” Isabela crooned, looking up at her finally. “You’ve come back have you? Here to take me up on that offer?” The Rivaini woman stretched looking around Solona. “Zevran send you, or am I to expect him in an ambush later?”

“Yes -- He’s... he’s not coming,” she answered. Of anyone, Isabela would’ve understood if she’d explained properly what had happened with Zevran. But the point of the evening was to forget, not to bring more pain on herself, and when she thought of him now it only hurt.

“Wherever he is, I’m sure that’s not true,” Isabela laughed. Solona flinched at the words, but let herself be distracted as the other woman stood. Her gaze drifted over tall boots, remembering the soft, round legs beneath... and the smell of the sea. “Just you then,” she said when Solona didn’t respond.. “From the looks of you, I don’t think you’re here on business either.” 

She didn’t want to hear it, but there was an edge of something akin to concern in the other woman’s voice. Or pity. Solona wanted neither; she craved heat and distraction and the scent oil and leather and steel. Swallowing freed the breath caught in her throat and she met the shadow of Isabela’s dark eyes. 

“No. Not business.” She wet her lips, only to bite down on the corner of her lower lip. 

“Ah! Well, you’re in luck, my dear Warden. Because I’m just in the mood for a little pleasure right now,” she chuckled and collected her winnings into the pouch at her waist. “Well... the kind that involves you and me, and the night sea breeze.” Her brow quirked up as if half-expecting Solona to refuse. Her hip jutted out and she rested her fingers in the scarf tied around her waist, waiting. 

Relief flooded Solona’s body, warmth in her fingers and cool at the tips of her ears. It was enough to give her a few ounces of bravery when she needed it most. “Definitely...” she breathed. “Pleasure.”


	5. Secrets Worth Keeping (Aveline/Hawke)

Before the crowds dispersed she’d asked her, “Where you do think you’ll go?”

Marian had only shrugged and looked back towards the rest of their friends, those that were left, as they helped the templars make sense of what was left. There was little sense to be found she knew, but it wasn’t going to stop people from trying. 

“Don’t know. Home, maybe?”

“Here… or?”

“No. I told Beth a long time ago I’d take her to see what was left of what we left behind. Blight’s been over for years.” She shrugged again, the way that only Marian knew how: all attitude and gentle rolling shoulders. “No time like the present I guess. It’ll get her out of here at least.”

Aveline nodded. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get her out sooner, but maybe this’ll be good.” As much as she’d been behind Bethany’s decision to turn herself over to the templars all those years ago, who knew what staying would do to the remaining mages. Bethany didn’t deserve that. Neither did Marian when it came to that. “Don’t know there’s much left there to find though.”

“I know. I think she does too, but…” Marian looked down and rubbed her fingers together. Both of them had hands covered in layers of dirt and blood, it sunk down into the crevasses of their fingertips like it belonged there. 

Maybe it did.

“I understand,” she said. “You’ll write me, let me know what you find?”

Marian nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

“Thanks, Marian.” 

Her friend looked up from her hand and it seemed as though she was making no effort to conceal the tears in her eyes. Marian swallowed but with some visible effort. 

“What will you tell them?” She glanced aside, focusing briefly on the Knight Captain as he conversed with Donnic and Isabela. There was some wild gesturing between the three of them and at least once, it was clear they were talking about the giant statue of the former Knight Commander in the middle of the Gallows.

“Something.” Aveline shook her head. “Something that keeps them looking far away from you.”

“Thanks, Aveline.”

“Wouldn’t do it for anyone else, Hawke.”


	6. Locked Out (Fenris/Isabela)

They crashed together against the front door with a kiss, both too eager to get behind closed doors. Isabela reached around him to push the front door open. It rattled but did not give. 

Isabela broke the kiss, her head cocked as she pulled away to give him an incredulous look. “Since when do you lock the door?” She poked a finger against his chest as she made room for him to turn and let them inside.

Fenris growled at the space between them, annoyed momentarily by the broken kiss. His eyes went wide at her question, turning in the next moment to look at the door to his estate. Hawke had been telling him for weeks to start locking up. Aveline had been telling him for even longer than that. Both worried (and too much so, he thought) that one of his neighbors would finally tire of the site of Danarius’ estate and lock him out.

“I don’t,” he said, the tinge of anger in those words. 

Isabela snaked a hand down his hip and gave him a look that curbed the anger, but did nothing for the heat she’d already stirred in him. She’d only armed him with further need to get inside the estate. 

“Then open it up, so we can deal with whoever did.” Her laugh echoed off the stone between the house and his neighbor’s. She slipped down, her hand distractingly along the inside of his thigh as she pressed against him. “Then we can get on with our evening,” she drawled.

He looked at her and though he did it with some reluctance, he pushed her hand away. “There’s a reason I don’t lock the door, Isabela.”

“Because there’s nothing worth stealing?” she flicked his shoulder with her now free hand. “Or because it’s not your house?”

“No.”

“Don’t tell me after all these years you don’t have a key to this place.”

“Then how would you like me to explain why I can’t open the door?” His lips curled up, his brief and wolfish smile drawing a chuckle out of her. 

“Fine. Step aside,” she shooed him away from the door. She drew a pin from under her scarf and bent down to examine the door. “Hard to see down here. If only there were some soft, glowing light that could help me see what I’m working with....”

Stepping up behind her, Fenris slid his hand along her arm up towards the lock, letting his brands glow as his fingertips finally touched the door.

“Show off.”

Fenris smiled down at her even if she couldn’t see it (perhaps especially because she couldn’t see it). He remained silent as she worked and the door clicked open a few moments later. She pushed the door and it swung open into the darkness of the foyer. Slowly, Isabela stood, leaning into him as she did. 

“It’s open,” she said. Stepping away so he could pass by her and go into the estate, Isabela exchanged the pin in her hand for a dagger. 

“Good.” 

Fenris brushed by her to go inside, aware of the look she shot his direction as he did. His brands cast a soft light on the interior of the estate and he looked around for a moment to determine if anything looked different or disturbed. Content with the idea that nothing was out of the ordinary, he gestured at Isabela who was already close behind.

“I believe someone, owes someone a thank you. After all, if I hadn’t been here, how would you have gotten inside?” She passed him, feigning a nip at his ear as she did. 

“I would have ---”

“Do. Not. Say that you would’ve gone to Hawke’s for help.”

“... found a way.”

“Hawke would’ve laughed anyway. Getting locked out of your own house.” She shook her head and chuckled. “Honestly, Fenris.”

They were both silent as they reached the top of the stairs and peeked around separate corners looking into the other bedrooms. Finding them both empty, they approached the main room together. 

Whispering she said, “You can just owe me a favor, I suppose.”

He entered the room first, and finding it empty Fenris gestured at Isabela that the room was clear. 

“Nothing?” she asked as she sauntered into the room and rested an arm on the fireplace. “A shame, I hate getting all worked up over nothing.”

Fenris checked the room again after lighting a fire for them both. Tomorrow he’d remember to ask Hawke if he’d seen anything earlier in the day. He’d spent so many hours with Isabela at the Hanged Man, there was no way of knowing who’d locked the door unless there’d been a witness. With nothing moved or stolen, it appeared the criminals had returned. Empty-handed.

Isabela seemed to wait, letting him finish lighting the fire before sauntering towards him. “I suppose they didn’t know what they’d be missing,” she said as she approached. 

“Indeed,” he said, eyes on her hips. He grabbed her at the waist once she was close enough and yanked her close, stealing a kiss. “It’ll be quite the show.”

“It better be,” she whispered before kissing in return. He felt her slink up against him, tiptoes giving her the height to kiss the top of his head. It also put her breasts at the right height that he didn’t have to bend down to pull at her tunic strings with his teeth. 

As she slipped down again, returning to boots flat against the floor he peppered kisses up her throat. His lips pressed hard against hers, unbalancing them both and she overcorrected, propelling them towards the bed.


	7. Blackmail (Bethany & Varric)

Bethany knocked on the door to Varric’s room, book in hand.  She smiled but didn’t bother to feign innocence or sweetness, knowing he’d catch on before she even finished her sentence.  With Varric, sometimes it was better to be the story than to try and tell one.  

“Sunshine,” Varric called.  His arms were as wide as his smile as he greeted her.  He didn’t bother to get up from his chair, just gestured for her to come in.  “What brings you my way...” he craned his head as if waiting for Marian and she tried to ignore the brief bit of disappointment on his face when her sister didn’t appear.  “... all by yourself?”  

She set the book on the table between them before sitting down, hands folded under her thighs.  He didn’t seem surprised by it, but one of his bushy eyebrows twitched and that was the best she might get from him.

“I found this at a shop just around the corner from Gamlen’s.”

When it looked like Varric was going to comment, she fixed him with a stern look and added, “My mother shops there, Varric.  That’s why I was there when I found it.”

He cocked a brow and Bethany sighed heavily, leaning forward and lowering her voice.  “Varric.  I don’t know if it was you.  Or if it was Isabela.  But you’re lucky Marian was off on a job and I was the one at market with Mother.”

Grinning, Varric grabbed the book and flipped through it.  Bethany grimaced at his nonchalance.

“Alright, Sunshine,” he said as he set the book back down.  “Tell me what’s got you all worked up then.  Those shops sell all kinds of books, from all kinds of people.”  He ran his fingers over the title on the front, _A Falcon in Flight_.  “This seems like a lovely instructional guide for noble’s that might be taking up a new hobby.”  His grin lifted a little wider as he sat back in his chair and looked at Bethany.  “I can only assume that’s why you might have picked it up.”

“Varric.”  She had to look away to keep from grinning.  Having read the book (or at least enough of it) she knew it was nothing so innocent as he was pretending.  She sighed.  It would’ve been easier to just storm in and make demands rather than try and sit and talk with him about it.  She was already blushing thinking about the passage she’d started reading before she’d realized what it was really about.  

“What would you have done if I sat down and told you my mother read this.  That she sent me to find out who wrote it?”

“I’d ask first if she was a fan of the author or not.  Wouldn’t want to take credit for a book she didn’t like, now would I?”

“Varric, be serious.  She bought it, she almost did read it.”

“Almost, but didn’t.”  He shrugged.

She pursed her lips trying her best attempt at the look Marian gave bad guys when they bothered to stop and ask them questions.  “What about if I told you Marian has read it.  That in fact, she’s downstairs right now talking to Isabela?”  At least part of that was true enough that Bethany felt her approach had promise.

Varric shifted in his seat and she watched his face closely when a moment passed and he hadn’t answered.  He cleared his throat.  Moved again, adjusting one of the sleeves on his shirt.  

Finally he said, “If she had, Sunshine, she’d be here and not you.”  

It was all the confirmation Bethany needed and she smiled sweetly at her triumph, even if it was minor.  “I don’t want to know anymore than I already do, because that’s plenty.  But, I would appreciate it if you’d at least help find a different store to sell them?  Someplace on the other side of town from my Uncle’s?”  She sat up straighter, but her smile faded as she looked back down at the book.  “Mother’ll be looking for this soon enough.  I’ll have to get her something else so she forgets she bought this one.  Unless you want her reading this... this...”

“This... ?”

She pointed at the book and gestured aimlessly.  “Well, you know.”

Varric chuckled softly.  “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good,” Bethany said.  She stood up and made for the door, leaving the book right where it sat on Varric’s table.  When she reached the door she looked back at him.  “If I see them again, I’ll make sure I give the next copy Mother buys to Marian.  I’m sure she’d be very interested in the adventures of the Lady Falcon and her handsome, dwarven companion.”

 


End file.
